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Dead Man's Hand. By Jonah Samson.
Self-Published, 2013.
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"Upon opening Jonah Samson’s Dead Man’s Hand I knew I had unsealed a puzzle. The box functions as an evidence file for an unsolved crime. Loose plates of crime scenes, pin-up ads and criminal arrest records are stacked on top of one another as the only proof left of a brutal act of violence. It all hints at a nostalgia for mid-20th century crime photography and the limitations the medium had for solving these violent offenses. It also begs the viewer to put together the vague pieces and come to their own conclusions of the characters portrayed in this book.
The artist doesn’t try to hide the fact that this is all one big fabrication. He blends a mixture of mediums, even constructing his own dioramas of the crime scenes and photographing them with an old Speed Graflex. It’s a refreshing approach to the genre of evidence driven photography that has come into vogue over the last few years. It’s fiction, but the artist’s puzzle hints that it could be real and the only conclusion that matters is your own."—Antone Dolezal
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Lara Shipley and Antone Dolezal's Devil's Promenade is currently on view at photo-eye Bookstore + Project Space at 376A Garcia Street. Signed copies of their new publication Spook Light Chronicles, Volume II are nearly sold out; copies of the limited edition are still available. Read the interview with Shipley and Dolezal here.